'' cup from the du Paquier period, 1730 At Augarten, there is a meticulous attention to the details of production. The process involves precisely combining materials and using time-tested techniques. Like most factories in the German-speaking world, it was founded with expertise provided by key workers enticed from
Meissen porcelain, who brought the secrets of the Meissen materials and techniques with them, and the wares remained broadly similar to those made there, although the body was not exactly the same, and gradually improved. Wares were
hard-paste porcelain, and always of very high quality. The paste underwent different processes based on the intended purpose. A thick liquid slip was used for moldable pieces. Whereas a ripened past was used for flat items like plates. All the pieces were hand-glazed with a liquid mixture. The mixture contained quartz, feldspar, kaolin, and dolomite. The glaze was quickly absorbed leaving a fine coating. Handles, knobs, edges, and rims were carefully touched up with a brush as well as excess being wiped off from the rims. Initially mostly table wares were produced, often with a slightly blueish tinge to the plain body. European flowers (as opposed to East Asian ones copied from imports) were used in decoration from around 1730, before Meissen, and subsequently very widely used across European factories. As at Meissen,
chinoiserie decoration was also often used, as were hunting and battle scenes. The Du Paquier period began the tradition of strong and varied colours, which was to remain a strength of Vienna porcelain. There was heavy use of
openwork in some pieces. In 1725 the factory inaugurated a style, called
Laub- und Bandelwerk in German. The style has intricate painted borders or backgrounds of
trellis,
bandwork,
palmettes, garlands, fruit and other very formalized plant motifs. Sometimes painted in black the designs were usually colored in red, violet, green, blue, and yellow. White handles and rims were usually brightend with Gold and Silver but some knobs and handles were also formed as animals, and sometimes people. Like other factories in major capitals, including Meissen,
Capodimonte and
Buen Retiro in Madrid, Vienna produced a few porcelain rooms for palaces, the only surviving example of which is now installed in the
Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. However, the porcelain here does not cover all the wall space that is not window or mirror, as in other examples, but is a border around the wall-spaces, with matching plaques on the furniture. Porcelain was used for diplomatic gifts; the
Hermitage Museum retains most of a service made in 1735 for Empress
Anna of Russia, which included more than 40
tureens. Other pieces are dispersed (the early Soviet government sold several pieces), and a tureen from the service made $365,000 at
Christie's in New York in 2014. Chief modellers included Johann Joseph Niedermeyer, working from 1747 to 1784, and Anton Grassi from 1778 to 1807, who was sent to study classical remains in Rome for several months in 1792. Neither quite achieved the charm of the light-hearted genre figures of other factories. Like Meissen and other German factories, some Vienna pieces were decorated by outside painters, or
Hausmalers. A new director, Konrad von Sorgenthal, took over during a financial crisis in 1784 and changed the style of wares, following the fashion for
Neoclassicism and taking some influence from
Sèvres. Bright colours, extensive use of gold, and very detailed painting characterize the style, and set the typical Vienna style for decades to come. Another Neoclassical fashion in porcelain which Vienna embraced was the
biscuit porcelain figure. Many pieces of tableware, especially cups with saucers, were now essentially made for display in porcelain cabinets, rather than use. Sorgenthal employed painters known in other media: Anton Kothgasser (1769–1851) was also a painter of glass, and
Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790–1849), the son of a painter for the factory, worked for them until 1809, before concentrating on painting
portrait miniatures. After Sorgenthal, Matthias Niedermayer assumed the role of director at the factory. During this time, the factory maintained its production of wares in the Neo-classical style. However, in the 1830s, there was a shift towards heavier and rounded shapes. Painters at the factory continued to decorate with recreations of Old Masters and original botanical, topographical, and Classical compositions. Nevertheless, the overall decoration became less elaborate, and there was a decline in the quality of execution. The quality of wares was in decline by the late 1820s, when unsuccessful attempts began to revive the factory by producing cheaper wares from lower-quality materials, decorators paid on
piecework, and some use of printed transfer. All were counter-productive, and production continued to reduce, although some high-quality pieces were produced until the end. Some moulds and undecorated fired "blanks" were bought by other factories, including
Herend, and added to the considerable volume of imitations, "replicas" and downright forgeries that have copied Vienna porcelain. Other genuine Vienna pieces had their decoration scraped off to be repainted in a more elaborate style. ==Marks==